A Reverie of Sorts
by x.ethereal
Summary: A short insight into Bellatrix Lestrange's time at Azkaban, set a few months before her breakout.


Just a short little one shot I wrote for an English assignment (it was supposed to be descriptive/narrative, but I never really ended up handing it in). Hope you enjoy! All characters belong to the wonderful J.K. Rowling of course.

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It is a pungent stench of rotten food, discarded sewage, unwashed clothes and fresh corpses that lingers in the uppermost –and best guarded- cells of Azkaban. It hangs thickly in the still air for no windows are open up here. Barty, upon his last visit a little over a decade from today, had decided that it was an unnecessary risk to take, leaving windows open when they were dealing with some of the greatest- and darkest- wizards and witches of the age. The windows have been plastered shut and railings have been built on the outside since then; fresh air has not permeated these cells in years.

The atmosphere up here is rather morose- but then again, what is to be expected near the cells of bloodthirsty, inhumane mortals who have murdered hundreds and have been sentenced to life imprisonment for their sadistic deeds? The air is filled with a cold chill that has nothing to do with the heavy wind that is brought by the crashing North Sea, and everything to do with the bloody and freaky thoughts of people- thoughts encouraged by the fifty soulless, heavily cloaked dark figures that glide by the bolted cells every half hour, pausing only to bend in for a few seconds and extract any feelings that bear even the slightest hint of happiness. In their wake, thoughts of despair and despondency are left behind.

A macabre cry pierces the blanket of silence hanging over the prison, awakening a young figure at the far west end of it.

Her cell does not resemble its neighbors. It is considerably large- by Azkaban standards- and built entirely out of concrete from the cracked ceiling to the chipped walls and bitty floor. There are not paintings adorning the walls, no graffiti scribbled upon them; a poorly done engraving stating TDL Will Rise Again is the only sign that the room has been inhabited in the past century. There is a single window, perched high on the back wall; steel bars, around which mould is growing, offer an obscured view of the murky, grayish sky outside the prison walls. A single, rusted toilet, half closed away from the rest of the room by a wooden door, is built into the far corner of the room; there is no other furniture around. The only inhabitant of the room is nowhere to be seen.

But- look a little closer- she lies hidden beneath the shadows that loom in the right hand corner of the room, a small, spider-looking thing.

She is not slender but rather on the brink of anorexia: her arms are nothing more than frail twigs, her frame nothing more than a padded skeleton. The thin, faded cloak that covers her reveals a sunken ribcage. Her arms are crossed tightly over her thin chest, one of them absentmindedly stroking the other. Both are canvases of cuts and purple bruises, some fresh, some slightly healed, remnants from times when she grew too furious, too crazy and decided to attack herself with the rocks around her. Her face is upturned towards the cracked, soggy ceiling above her, jer large eyes flicking back and forth rapidly as if she is reading something; the ceiling is blank, however.

She was beautiful once they say- but not now. Whatever beauty she held has been wiped out by fourteen years in the harsh reality that is Azkaban: her eyes, heavily lidded as ever, have dulled to a murky brown and sunk into their sockets. Her nose is crooked, bearing the imprints of having been broken many a time. Her lips are thin and colorless against the backdrop of her pale skin. Stringy curls of hair fall limply against her bony shoulders, having seen neither water nor brush for more than a decade.

The temperature drops a few degrees. A draught of icy wind fills her cell and frost begins to gather on the edge of the capsized, bitty bowl of last night's unfinished dinner (she never succumbs to the disgusting Azkaban food that she is offered every night- if food it can be called- preferring to indulge in arachnids, savoring their tangy bitterness over the bland, weak porridge that is served). She clasps her hands tightly around her knees, hugging them to her chest as she tries to ward off the biting cold that occurs whenever the Dementors are on the verge of performing a Kiss. A blood-curdling scream echoes off through the prison walls and she gasps a little. She's never been subject to the Kiss of course, but she knows the outcome: a barely existing, soulless, mindless creature that is neither here nor there but at a crossroads between life and death.

Until that link is cut short with Avada Kedavra, of course. It's not death she fears but rather the chance of not witnessing him rising again…to not be with when she glory returns, when he once again becomes the strongest magician in the world- when he praises her, above all others, for waiting for him and never losing hope that one day he would rise again. Her fingers trace the engraving beside her and she smiles a little to herself as she picks up a jagged stone next to her and crosses out another four lines on the wall. It's been seven hundred weeks already, she realizes, looking at the wall. She's been keeping track, all these years- these endless, 14 years- a scratch for every week that passes, tallying everything up.

The screams have stopped, she realizes, and she looks up around her in surprise, not realizing that the sound has been pounding in her head for the past couple of minutes. Creeping up towards the front of her cell, she entwines her fingers tightly around the iron railings. She presses her face against them, closing her eyes for a moment as she cheeks touch the cold metal. Her cell is one of many in a long corridor. She can distantly hear the others: their screams and groans are like music to her, after being woken up and lulled to sleep by them for over a decade. Opening her eyes, she glimpses her husband through the tiny gap in the railings.

Rodolphus sits cross legged in the middle of his cell, with his back towards her, his arms tied back roughly behind his back with his head tiled upwards at the plastered window. She calls his name out and he twitches slightly, turning his neck around for a moment before resuming his dead pan stare. He too has been changed by Azkaban. He's thing- much thinner than the last time she spoke to him- and his hair has taken on various shades of gray, not to mention grown about two inches longer. It skims his shoulders as he moves his head. His face is sallow and pale yellow, the skin around his dark eyes taut and crinkled with age.

"Did you know," she asks him quietly, her eyes lighting up with memories of curses and torture, "That I've killed people?"

His eyes widen in surprise but he gently tells her, "Of course I do, Bella. I was present at each of your murders-"

She cuts him off sharply as she reminisces. "None were as satisfying, however, as the incident with the Longbottoms. That, Rodolphus, was wonderful. Don't you remember?" And she remembers. She remember standing in the middle of her sister's home, throwing out curse after curse at the couple, growing more and more gleeful with each piercing scream uttered by Alice and Frank. She remembers young, pretty Alice Longbottom writhing on the floor in pain, her desperate screams echoing off the marble floors and walls of the living room. A pitying sight, a weaker person may have said but for Bellatrix, the twisted, horrified, deathly pale face of Frank Longbottom only served to strengthen her thirst for pain and torture. She had laughed and giggled mirthlessly, taunting the fools for being idiotic enough to sacrifice themselves instead of their little boy; Alice's only word before she'd slipped into insanity had been to repeatedly blunder out 'Neville'.

'Neville…Longbottom..." The name slips off her tongue as melted ice would: easily and lovingly. "Tell me, Rodolphus, he would be about twelve or so no, wouldn't he? I've always wanted to compete the set , you know, have a little fun with him as with. Perhaps send him off to mummy and daddy in St. Mungo's. It would be lovely, don't you think? All the Longbottoms…mad…but together again…" Her voice trails off and she laughs harshly, the sound echoing off the stone walls and bars around her.

She cranes her neck towards her husband, who is watching her warily and nervously, as if expecting her to launch herself at the bars between them at any moment and rip them off viciously. "What, Rodolphus," she asks him playfully, tapping the walls with her cracked and dirt ridden fingernails, "You don't think I too will go mad? Do not worry, my love. I can never lose my sanity so long as this mark remains etched upon my skin and the-"

She stops, catches her breath and prepares to continue- and then feels her eyes bulge out as her arm begins to burn. She gasps and lifts up her sleeve to stare at it; her heart stops for a moment when she realizes that the previously faint emblem is now bold and alive, glaring back at her. It is just as she remembers it fourteen years ago, back when the Dark Lord's power had reigned strongest of all: a snake protruding from between the parted lips of an etched skull, entwining itself around it and slithering its tongue back at her. She grasps her arm tightly and begins to kiss the mark delightedly, tears stinging the corners of her eyes; her beloved master- he's powerful again!

"Do you- is yours-?" she asks Rodolphus softly, pressing herself against the wall in an effort to hear him, unable to form coherent sentences at the sheer delight of witness the Dark Mark come alive after so many years. She looks up for a brief moment to meet Rodolphus' gaze through the tiny crack before snapping her eyes back to the moving Mark. He has not answered her but she knows he feels it too for he too is clutching his right arm, his expression one of utter shock and- she smiles to herself- mild amazement. After what seems like years, he raises his head, meets her eyes and gives her a tiny nod. She begins to giggle furiously, her eyes flicking back and forth between her husband's eyes and the burning mark on her arm. After some time, Rodolphus too joins in her laughter.

And they laugh like crazed fools because they reached and toppled over the brink of insanity long, long ago.

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Reviews are loved and appreciated! x


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